


You never forget (the first time)

by gyuhyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3962869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyuhyun/pseuds/gyuhyun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joonmyun falls in love with a dream.</p><p><b>Warnings</b>: Implied Kris situation, Lu Han. ALSO!!! This was written before the Tao situation... so there's that.<br/><b>Disclaimer:</b> I do not claim this story as a truth. Everything written here is fiction and something that I came up with on my own. I do not own the characters, the entertainment agency, and whatever else it is related to EXO.</p><p>Originally posted <a href="http://kpop-olymfics.livejournal.com/114164.html">here</a> on <a href="http://kpop-olymfics.livejournal.com/">kpop_olymfic</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	You never forget (the first time)

Joonmyun doesn't watch the results of his hard work fall part. Instead, he hears it—almost literally—explode into a million falling stars all around him.

After their performance on Music Bank, their manager refused to give them their phones back. Joonmyun shrugged it off the first hour. He could do without his phone for a few minutes, he just was just going to check his messages anyway. After the second and third hour, Joonmyun began to worry.

 _Something is off_ , he thought.

It was Sehun who begged and pleaded for his phone, pulled a few aegyos before pouting and whining. Their manager, obviously distraught at the display, seemed to contemplate on what to do. Joonmyun bit his lip as their manager gathered them around, he didn't seem to be any closer to giving them their phones.

Their manager started in a hushed whisper but Joonmyun heard it loud and clear, almost like an echo that grew louder instead of softer. He heard Sehun start sniffling first then Chanyeol's curses and Baekhyun's shouts of protest. Jongin's breaths were heavy in his ears and Kyungsoo's silence was the most deafening of all. Amidst this all, the manager's voice boomed with a heavy warning of what not to do.

The command, Joonmyun realized far too late, backfired. Sehun cried as he took to social media to express himself. Chanyeol shouted and asked questions only one person could answer. Baekhyun took a deep breath, his eyes shining with unshed tears as he threw his phone on the couch adjacent to him.

Joonmyun listened as his friends—his family—fell apart. Joonmyun listened as his manager advised him to stand alone on stage because he was EXO's leader, their guardian, always had been and always would be. Joonmyun listened because his members couldn't stand on stage with him, their eyes were red, brimming with anger and tears. Joonmyun listened because anything else sounded better than the explosion in his ears.

When they announced EXO's win with ‘ _Overdose_ ’, Joonmyun accepted the award but felt anything but a winner.

 

 

 

Joonmyun falls in love with a dream.

Not the dream that you have when you close your eyes and find yourself lost in a mass of thoughts that may or may not make sense. No, the kind of dream Joonmyun falls in love with is something closer to an ambition—a goal—something _real_ , so real he can feel it at the tips of his fingers.

Joonmyun falls in love, for the very first time, when he sings.

 

 

 

Joonmyun sat down on one of the many benches scattered all over the company building. He took a deep breath and let it go. He repeated this process until the pain behind his eyes went away and the scratchiness of his throat turned smooth. He felt like he had aged quite considerably since he left the board meeting with their managers and Kim Youngmin.

Joonmyun closed his eyes and tried to relax but Kim Youngmin's voice echoed all around him. The strict tone it had came with it too, making it even harder to compose himself. He couldn't seem to shake off the memory of it, of the instructions given to them on how to deal with the... situation.

Joonmyun massaged his temples as the words got caught in his throat, unable to escape. He could talk about the _issue_ but couldn't properly name it.

Before he could focus on his tiny pity party for himself, before he could _really_ think about what all this meant, Joonmyun remembered what Kim Youngmin said.

" _We're going through with the concert._ " Joonmyun could still feel the relief that washed over him then. " _The best way to move on from this is to show him and the fans that you didn't need him in the first place._ "

The words were harsh but it gave Joonmyun enough strength to believe that maybe he could still put the broken pieces of his heart together.

Joonmyun stood up from his bench, a sort of resolve keeping him tall and proud. His dream couldn't possibly put itself back together all by itself. Joonmyun would put it back together with his blood, sweat and tears.

 

 

 

Joonmyun builds his dream slowly and bit by bit. It takes him a long time—seven years long—to see it to completion.

But Joonmyun succeeds.

Joonmyun stands on stage after those seven years for the very first time, adrenaline running through his veins with nerves mixing with it. He takes it all in—the stage, the fans, the 11 other boys—and knows this is it.

 _I've made it,_ Joonmyun thinks.

Joonmyun builds his dream, not with his hands, but with his heart and his voice. On a ground he thought was rock.

 

 

 

Joonmyun's heart shatters right before his eyes. He watches the pieces fall off, glittering as they hit the ground. The pieces are so fine Joonmyun doesn't know if he can put it back together again.

It started with a knock. Luhan had knocked on Joonmyun's door, let himself in before Joonmyun could really say anything. Joonmyun didn't think anything of it, just thought maybe Luhan wanted to talk.

Luhan took a seat at the edge of Joonmyun's bed, a solemn smile on his face. It was a little too late when Joonmyun finally felt anxious about the whole situation.

Joonmyun watched as Luhan gripped his shorts and swallowed. Joonmyun took slow steps toward his band member and asked him what was wrong.

Luhan's eyes shone with so many emotions that Joonmyun's heart pounded. There were so many of them but it looked like guilt was the most prominent.

"I can't do this anymore," Luhan whispered, his voice almost breaking.

Joonmyun said something. He also probably asked a lot of questions but the only thing clear to him then was that Luhan was going and there was no way of stopping him.

Joonmyun takes the powdery essence that was once his heart in his hands but the wind blows them away. Joonmyun watches as his dream shatters and goes—never to come back, never again.

 

 

Joonmyun knows it’s love. It can never be anything but love.

How can it be failure if he knows he can make it? How can it be a setback, the wrong path, if when he continues going straight he knows he will make it?

Joonmyun knows it's love because when he hits his seventh year in SM, they tell him he's going to debut.

It's love because he fought for it with everything he had and he came back alive.

 

 

 

Joonmyun watches as colors disappear and everything fades to black and white. Joonmyun watches as his members cry, as Lu Han goes home. Joonmyun watches as his dream dies and so does he.

Chaos.

It was how Joonmyun would describe everything.

Kim Youngmin was the angriest Joonmyun could ever remember but Joonmyun stood his ground and kept quiet. Even as he was left alone in front of the CEO, Joonmyun let nothing out about Lu Han's departure.

Lu Han couldn't take it anymore and the least Joonmyun could do as his leader—his _guardian_ —was let him go. Even if Joonmyun couldn't bear the thought of his bandmate—his brother choosing his family in China over them. Joonmyun let Lu Han go because he knew it was right.

After Youngmin's fifth warning and threat and Joonmyun still managed to keep his mouth shut, Youngmin gave up and sent him away.

Joonmyun walked out of the office with pride on his skin but despair in his bones.

Lee Sooman let JYJ and Han Geng go. Sooman set Kibum free. Youngmin would definitely not be the same. Joonmyun was sure then that their CEO would do everything in his power to take EXO apart, slowly and painfully, like his life depended on it. After all, Youngmin was the man behind EXO, not Lee Sooman.

Joonmyun walks with no path in mind and no heart.

 

 

 

Joonmyun dreams, this time the kind of dream when you close your eyes and let your subconscious take over you.

Joonmyun dreams of himself, so many years ago, working harder year after year until he made it to his seventh and _final_ year.

Joonmyun dreams of his members, all nine of them who are left, looking at him with bright hopeful eyes.

Joonmyun dreams of a stage, of a sea bigger than the last.

Joonmyun wakes up with tears in his eyes and fire in his veins—a resolve for a new dream.

Joonmyun stands on stage for what he _knows_ will never ever be the last time. He looks at the sea of white lights, twinkling like stars in the night. He breathes in the scent of his hard work. He listens to the screams and cries of support.

Joonmyun clasps his hands around the members' beside him. He takes a deep breath as tears falls from his eyes. The fans' cry of their names doesn't stop echoing in his ears.

Joonmyun bows with nine other boys and falls in love again, not just with singing, not just with the stage. Joonmyun falls in love again with everything that has to do with being EXO, EXO's leader, and EXO's guardian.


End file.
